RBP1 Succession Game - Celtic Light Infantry (PtW)

[Ozymandous]

We already have our FP and we're still in the BC times (unless I counted wrongly)?? Cool!!

Since we'll be fighting a lot (in another 20 turns no doubt) we should hopefully get another leader to make the army with eventually so that shouldn't bee bad. The boost from the FP so early will help more than the army would now anyway, unless it had spawned a second leader when it atacked (which I don't think armies can trigger anyway).

Nice that we use the last 4 turns of our GA in a Republic. Heh, we're even with the AI's now, which means that we're probably going to be leading the pack by the end of the Middle Ages (hopefully).

Seems like a good job to me. Oh, and I'd rather settle the city for better long term growth and use a colony than otherwise, if we're discussing that as well.

 

[Charis]

Looks like an *outstanding* turn, Marshall!!

First off, I want to say I'm sorry about whatever situation leaves you wanting to crawl under a rock and desperate for sleep
I hope everything is ok and will be praying for you...

Glad we had a barb-hunter in reserve in Alesia, our next leader may want to think about that mountain 'outpost'

> I decide to move one of the Galics next to Leptis Minor to see
> what the heck is defending it. Turns out to be a regular
> numidian....... ok, we ARE taking that city because we ARE
> going to want the FP in Santiago I'm sure and thats a first ring
> city for it. Besides that, it has a spice in it's inner ring, which
> SHOULD make 5 lux in our territory soon. I send many Galics
> that way to prepare for the assult.

Now that's bold, you're going to take it to Carthage?!!
I like it, although I didn't want to commit to taking on the Numidians on my watch.

> The first Gallic attacks Santiago and his victory produces a
> Great Leader...... OMG a leader?!
[dance]

Woo!! I knew from the promotions that these Celts take their 'mil' nature seriously, and with all the elites we have, this doesn't surprise me one bit.

> The next Galic splatters a regular spear, and Santiago is ours!
> I'm REALLY tempted to just use the leader to rush the FP right
> there, as it seems the IDEAL location, but Charis seemed to
> think a Galic army was the way to go, so I figure I'll send him
> over over to Seville to do just that.

Now don't let my ideas get in the way of solid plans. My thinking was based on the thought that Carthage was not going to want peace anytime soon, and that the Arabs and Ottomans were not going to give up until they gotta at least a little beating. A Gallic Army would have been a "peace extractor" who could force our will on the opponent of our choice. But... an early FP in a great location is nothing to sneeze at!

> In a surprise, the capital jumps to Samalanca.
Ha! Well that makes it "come back in 20 to 40 to finish her off" rather than a "take Salamanca as part of the tribute"

> She WONT give up Murcia for anything.
Ding ding ding - she just put up a sign that there is a "future resource" in its tiles - found our city in the same spot! (I agree with Ozy anyway, long term thinking is best. Although I hate colonies and would just put a few culture bldgs in and wait to expand)

> The battle for Leptis Magna begins The first vet Gallic drops to
> 1hp, does NO damage, but retreats. The next vet Gallic does 2
> hits to the Numidian, then dies . The 3rd Gallic, an Eliete wins
> with 1hp left. The 4th Gallic (an eliete) takes out a regular
> numidian 3-2 and Leptis Magna is ours
Sweet! That's the difference the speed 2 makes, we lost two instead of 1, needing 'double the number of defenders' of attackers to take the city.

I like your method of getting us to the Middle ages, playing whack-a-mole with the last Numidian.

> Now I notice something... Korea has droped to cautious... DOH!
> No wonder they were Gracious! They are at war with Spain and
> Carthage! I'm now left wishing I'd known. It probably would
> have been worth it to wait a few turns, heal up the galics, and
> try to take another city or 2 from Carthage and really put the
> screws to them. Sigh. Sorry about that move guys.

Actually, if Carthage was allied with either orange or pink, you just busted their rep, which is good! (They may have only been allied with Spain, I can't remember) Korea made their own bed when they wouldn't give a straight-up alliance, now they have to lie in it. At least the pressure is off us, and we took Spain totallly off their back.

> I dial up the Ottomons, and they will give us WM and 20 gold
> for peace now. Might as well. War with somone that far away
> right now seems pointless. Besides, a few orange swords just
> showed up spoted by our northern warrior.
Ah, they'll pay?? I figured they would need some pain first, given their haughtiness. Nice.

> The Arabs will now accept a flat peace treaty, so I take that too.
Well, I'll be...

> Ironically, our leader has just now arrived at his intended army
> making spot, and now I decide we don't want an army since we
> are at peace...... SO, he heads right back over to Santiago to
> make that FP afterall X_X.
Well being at peace instead of at war vs 4 civs certainly is a factor! Santiago??! Excellent choice! It's much better for producing 'more' non-corrupt cities than Madrid, which is what I figured, but given peace we can stretch out the distance from our core. Also, with a leader, Santiago is feasible - I was figuring Madrid because i) we could build it manually, and ii) it was closer to home and readily defensible. We'll want a strong garrison there to protect it since it's so far from home though.

> Now I check the diplo screen and everyone now has the Republic
> Maybe this is a weedy move that will get me tar'd and
> feathered but I decided we couldn't afford to wait 31 more
> turns for The Republic. I just feel really strongly that 30 more
> turns in despotisim would hold us back more than getting a
> productive government now would cost us up front.

Spot on man!! Good call! We're out of despotism AND being rel were able to do it fast enough to get some GA time under republic. In general, btw, don't expect tar and feathering, and it's ok (no, better than that, good) to take 'current' conditions into account with your own planning than plans which are meant to be dynamic.

I like the gems move and marketplaces too, and road to Leptis.

The only thing I half wish differently - it won't be long before the world has Feudalism and our glorious, glorious Gallic Swords fade away into oblivion. If we still had a force of 8 Gallics including several elites, I would have gone up and razed an orange or pink city, pushed them as far as we could before Pikes appeared. We're constrained now for 20 turns of peace with *everyone* and by then we might see all Pikes. I don't recall the map, but if there was an iron patch nearby that we could have taken, it would have meant no Pikes for the ones it was taken from.

I say "half wish" because with such a successful war, we are indeed in great shape and could certainly use an extended consolidation period.

> The new cities are all working on a temple at the moment for border purposes.

Good deal, let them heal and grow and be happy. As relig, if we can pop out a good number of temples, we'll have a great culture that will help with flips, flip prevention and most importantly in this game, atittude With all the war going on you can BET the other civs have been totally ignoring culture!

> I hope my play didn't suck too bad. Sorry if it did. I'm just not
> thinking very clearly at the moment.
No, you're not, your play was super

> Maybe I should have just steped aside and let the rest of you
> handle it with my current state of mind. Everyone waited on
> me, so I would have felt bad if I hadn't taken my turn, or if I'd
> put it off any longer. But now that I finished it, I wonder how
> bad I messed up.

If your family or the situation needs you, don't give us a second thought, do what you need to do. Have a good name, and we look forward to the pics and save file. Thanks for you committment, I hope the game was therapeutic - don't let fear of messing up take any fun away - that's against the spirit of our SG's


Charis

PS @Ozy and thoughts...

Right, armies can't make leaders. The player-after-next will have to think carefully about where we're heading after the peace expires. There may yet be a window where we could have a 'tactical' Gallic war to hurt a foe or two and make some gains in land or tech, before the "great hiatus" we'll have until infantry arrive. As a "light infantry" variant, we'll totally miss out on Knights and Cavalry, and later on Tanks. Role-playing-wise, we think they're inferior and disdain them, but as players we know that a time of slumber may be coming for us, a much longer 'consolidation'. Artillery will be our great equalizer, if previous games shed any light. Because the win conditions are military, there WILL be a ton of fighting and yes, Army and Epic will help sooner rather than later. The next two turns will be pretty much buildiing infrastructure, and seeing big growth in our FP ring of cities, and coming up with the means to defend them vs Knights (even UU ones). Carthage's time of dominance is gone with Feudalism too. Out of the remaining civs, the one I *least* want to face in a war during their prime is the Ottomans and Siphali, so any chance to hamstring them before then would be a really good idea.

Can Entremont or Alesia start a wonder soon? The latter can do so via Palace placeholder even if we lack the tech. In our game Sistine, SunTzu and Leo's all rock, as does Bach. It would be super to snag one. Perhaps after Alesia's aqueduct? (and/or cathedral if the tech pace is slow and the others don't start a wonder)

 

[Ozymandous]

Since we're "at peace" for the next 20 (unless the AI changes this) how about popping out a few more settlers and heading East to the land we haven't settled yet? We should be able to pop a few more cities in there, which never hurts.

Have we explored all of that area yet? And if we do add more cities in that direction would it be worth it to more our capitol to Alesia for a more "central" location in that end?

 

[T-hawk]

Gallics do upgrade to Medieval Infantry, right? Those beat pikes. Although - do you get cash BACK for "upgrading" since the Gallics cost more to build?

 

[Zed-F]

Gallics retreat ability means they beat pikes too. Might be better to save the Gallics as Gallics (certainly the elites at least) for when you need mobility.

Hiatus until Infantry? Why? Sure, you want to consolidate first, but there's no reason you can't take it to the AI with Med Inf. and Pikes -- you may not have a speed advantage but you can have numbers. Those will work just fine until Cavalry arrive in the AI hands, and by the late middle ages you should be ahead on the tech tree. Taking a break then to wrap up outstanding infrastructure and build factories/hospitals should get you to about the point where you are approaching Replaceable Parts anyway.

 

[Arathorn]

I believe it's a "free" upgrade -- Gallic to medieval infantry for 0 gold, in any city with a barracks. Which is preferable is, of course, open to debate.

And I would claim that Gallic swords can easily beat pikes. Medieval infantry can probably beat muskets (40 shields vs. 60 shields, so losing 3 to kill 2 is a break-even proposition and you can probably do better than that.) Gallic swords vs. muskets might be very ugly, but with enough of 'em (hard to do @50 shields, I know), it shouldn't be a major problem.

I'd keep the offensive pedal to the metal for a while, if I were you. Maybe join the sharks against Korea (depending on time to walk there), even though they didn't frenzy on you.

Plenty of window for attacks yet, before cavalry/riflemen force a wait for artillery. At least IMHO.

Arathorn

 

[Charis]

Time to fire up my simulater again I see
These all assume defender is fortified, in a town less than
size 7 or open field. (If > size 7, bombard it down!)

Vet Gallics vs Reg Pikes - Win 42%, Retreat 31%, Lose 25%
Vet Gallics vs Vet Pikes - Win 28%, Retreat 40%, Lose 32%
Vet Gallics vs Reg Musk - Win 30%, Retreat 39%, Lose 31%
Vet Gallics vs Vet Musk - Win 16%, Retreat 44%, Lose 40%
Vet MedInf vs Reg Pikes - Win 66%, no Retreat, Lose 34%
Vet MedInf vs Vet Pikes - Win 50%, no Retreat, Lose 50%
Vet MedInf vs Reg Musk - Win 50%, no Retreat, Lose 50%
Vet MedInf vs Vet Musk - Win 35%, no Retreat, Lose 65%
(If Vet muskets, bombard them down to 3hp first)

Number of units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Vet Pikes:
4.4 Gallics, expected to lose 1.1
3.3 MedInf, expected to lose 1.3
Number of units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Reg Muskets:
4.4 Gallics, expected to lose 1.1
5.5 MedInf, expected to lose 1.5

Chance of a 4 on 2 siege vs Vet Pikes working, no barracks
Gallics: 72% win, 27% withdraw, 1% all die, expected loss of 1.0
MedInf: 95% win, 5% lose - expected losses of 1.3

Conclusion- too close to call! The Gallics win less often but die less often with retreat. In fact, a 'mixed' attack on a city probably gives the best results - soften a point off the defenders with a Gallic, and go for the win with Medieval Infantry. Certainly don't "upgrade" an elite Gallic to become a vet Medieval Inf.
There's also the advantage you can't quantify for being able to step up one square and attack a town on the same turn with the Gallics. Also, they're probably much better at chasing down Knights left in the open so they can't retreat.
Do we get to continue to make Gallics, due to the speed advantage? (Don't think so, just asking) Assuming we can't, keeping as many as we can around when we 'need' mobility is an excellent idea. (BTW, good call on your estimates of how our two offensive choices would fare against Pikes and Muskets)

Part of the purpose of the game is to see just what the Medieval Infantry can do (although Persian Immortal loves already know), so I think they'll definitely play a big role.

@Ozy - Excellent idea to backfill the east area, especially with peace

@Arathorn and Zed - Offensive pedal to the metal is probably a good idea, and you're right, we're not forced asleep until Cavalry which is a long way off. I'm hoping the Ottomans give us some lip, and we get the world against them so they're gone before Mil Tradition

We may be able to use strategic thinking to our advantage.
Denial of horses OR iron mean no knights!
Denial of iron means no pikes.
Denial of saltpeter means no muskets.

If a given foe lacks the resource needed for the 'current' advanced unit, we have a major advantage. The Gallic ability
to move and pilllage may come in handy there too.

Our advantage in numbers may come due to our nice FP and its whole ring of support.

:soldier:
Charis

 

[Arathorn]

Questions on your "simulator" Charis.

1. Is it available for others to use?
2. Do/can you record hps lost?
3. Do you account for promotions at all?
4. Do you account for the difference in retreat chances for vet vs. regular and vet vs. vet?
5. Why didn't you run elite numbers?

Of course, movement has other advantages besides retreat, as you noted. And I doubt you can build Gallics after medieval appear, since the former upgrade to the latter, but I've never been exactly clear on when you can build your UU and when you can't (I *think* it has something to do with whether or not you've had your GA, but I could easily be wrong on that.)

To me, though, it's reasonably clear that 5 medieval infantry are probably a match for 4 gallics (same 200 shields) but that it might be very prudent to have both around, as they have different exact uses. The answers to some of my questions above might change this opinion, however. (Specifically, my intuition is that the additional deaths of the medieval lead to more promotions which makes those fights tougher.)

Arathorn

 

[Zed-F]

The nice thing about this game is you are well setup for an attrition war; i.e. you are religious so can swap to Monarchy if need be in heavy fighting and back to Republic when you get the chance, your civ is larger than your neighbors so you can better absorb the expense of many units, and you don't have to worry about fighting on multiple fronts (although the one front you have is by no means small.)

That is the one thing the AI does not get a break on on harder difficulties -- things that require CASH (i.e. not science.) Unit support costs can become a killer for overly militaristic AIs, especially those that drop into less productive governments.

 

[Charis]

Arathorn wrote...
> Questions on your "simulator" Charis.
> 1. Is it available for others to use?

1. At present it's a Visual Basic app that I wrote last week, because existing calculators I saw gave only "base, one attack numbers", where what I really want to know is - can I take this city with these nn attacker? If I know they have a barracks or can get reinforced, how many units should I need to take it in a blitz, one turn? If we slug it out in a siege, keeping track that the defenders are losing hit points, how should it turn out. So basically it's a simulater that takes these scearios, runs them 1000 times and gets the percentages. If there were other 'real-world' questions that would be good to answer, lemme know

If there's interest I could make it available, but would want to polish up the interface a little bit. It also exports a CSV file with every attacker/defender pair for a tabular rather than interactive format.

> 2. Do/can you record hps lost?
Yes, that's the key feature, it keeps a sorted list of attacker and defender hp, and includes retreating.

> 3. Do you account for promotions at all?
Not at present, as I didn't have the number present. It is a 'known' thing though, isn't it? %chance to promote for mil and non-mil civs. Link? For cases of trying to overcome tough defense by sheer numbers, this would be important.

> 4. Do you account for the difference in retreat chances for vet
> vs. regular and vet vs. vet?

At present I use 50%, but is the real formula that:
%retreat chance = (fast units' max hp) / (fast unit max hp + opponents' max hp)
If so, reg vs reg or vet vs vet is 50%, but vet vs reg is 57% and elite vs reg is 62% - or is there some other formula?

> 5. Why didn't you run elite numbers?
I was quite in fear of presenting too many numbers as it was

..........
Elite numbers:
Elite Gallics vs Reg Pikes - Win 57%, Retreat 25%, Lose 18%
Elite Gallics vs Vet Pikes - Win 40%, Retreat 32%, Lose 27%
Elite Gallics vs Reg Musk - Win 42%, Retreat 32%, Lose 26%
Elite Gallics vs Vet Musk - Win 25%, Retreat 40%, Lose 35%
Elite MedInf vs Reg Pikes - Win 75%, no Retreat, Lose 25%
Elite MedInf vs Vet Pikes - Win 63%, no Retreat, Lose 37%
Elite MedInf vs Reg Musk - Win 63%, no Retreat, Lose 37%
Elite MedInf vs Vet Musk - Win 46%, no Retreat, Lose 54%
(If Elite muskets, bombard them down to 3hp first)

Number of *elite* units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Vet Pikes:
3.7 Gallics, expected to lose 0.7
2.8 MedInf, expected to lose 0.8
Number of *elite* units needed to 'blitz' a town of 2 Reg Muskets:
3.6 Gallics, expected to lose 0.7
2.9 MedInf, expected to lose 0.9

Chance of a 4 on 2 siege Elites vs Vet Pikes working, no barracks
Gallics: 89% win, 11% withdraw, 0.2% all die, expected loss of 0.7
MedInf: 99% win, 1% lose - expected losses of 0.8
See the last example, 89% vs 99% chance of win, but likelihood
of losing 1 MedInf and no Gallics in this siege
..........
Ok, you want to know how may Regular warriors it takes to blitz a town held by 2 Elite Mech Infantry don't you??! (If not elite at start, they will by the second horse each )
The first run ran out of memory trying to simulate 1000 such hideous events! Restarting with less apps open, it says:
- You need about 83 warriors and will lose 81 in a blitz
- If you siege 2 Mech Inf in the open surrounded by 100 warriors where they can't heal, the warriors have a 77% chance of winning, and a 23% of losing. So with enough Jaggies you can rule the world!

If you think it would be useful to make this available, or make an excel table available, or have formula corrections, let me know.

Charis

PS Question - You heal to full hp if you have a barracks and make no move or attack. With no barracks do you gain back 1hp? Does the AI get 1hp back, or does it gain 2? (I seem to remember seeing that latter via city inspection some game a long time ago)
This would be important information for the 'siege' calculations, and it's not currently included

 

[Arathorn]

Promotion chances:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24371&highlight=promotion+chance+regular

I believe healing is 1 hp in the open, 2 in a city without barracks, full in a city with barracks (or is it just 4 hps? Any modders know?) I also don't know about armies of units and how they heal. I think this is the same for the human and for the AI.

There're about a million questions I would like to ask a civ combat-ulator, but I don't have a good enough one. Have you considered counterstrikes out of the city with "defensive" units? What about one fortified, one not fortified? I want to go on more than my gut feel (which is usually accurate but not always) about the use of attacking a one hp defender when I have 3 one hp attackers. I, for one, would like a nice general emulator, but I should maybe just code my own, so I can call it how I like....

I'm not sure on the exact formula for retreats -- I've never seen it. I've always gone with a 50% +/-5% for each experience level of difference, as a "pretty good" estimate. Yours looks good, but I've not seen it anywhere else. I don't know. Maybe somebody could/should set up a huge situation and see... I also think that the retreat %age is important. You do have it set up, though, that a unit will not retreat if the opponent has only one hp left, though, right?

Well, I suspect some might not be interested in the numbers, but I'm a math geek (Ph.D. and all), so I very much appreciate the analysis, in as much depth as you care to present it. I figure it's easier for others to completely skip something than for me to guess accurately.

I guess I'm also confused by how you define "seige". My mental image of a seige is attacking until one side or the other is eliminated. How, then, can Gallics have a withdraw %age? Can you clarify?

Also, as a favor, could you run 6 knights (4/3) vs. 7 ansar warriors (4/2), with attacks and counter-attacks in a bloodbath? Or is that beyond your simulator? I'd like to see comparison results of knights attacking first vs. AWs attacking first. (No retreat since both are "fast" units.)

How many knights does it take to take out 3 riflemen -- 2 vet and one conscript? Probably assume a city size 7-12. Also, how long/much effort does it take to run your simulations (e.g. am I asking for too much?)

Arathorn

 

[T-hawk]

I think healing in a city with barracks is 4/turn rather than full, since that's how armies heal. Also, territory of an RoP partner is considered friendly - you can heal in it without Battlefield Medicine.

The promotion percentages are known: 1/4 for regular to vet; halve the chance for vet to elite; double the chance for militaristic. Also, a unit that wins two combats in a single turn (if it's defending, attackers that retreat don't count) automatically promotes after the second -- this is quite important against warrior/archer rushes, and is why jaguar rushes can work so well (they retreat).

What would be really great and applicable is a simulator in which you could list all your attacking units (of a combination of types), the defenders you'd expect to face, and have it tell you your chances of winning, expected losses, and even what the optimal order to attack with your units is (do you send the Gallics in first hoping they do damage and retreat, or save them to clean up wounded defenders?)

 

[Charis]

Excellent, a fellow geek (PhD Chem Engr here, thesis in Math modeling)

First, thanks for the link, wow that is everything you wanted to know about leaders. Also about the healing info - what you said sounds right.

The sim at present doesn't have the defenders attacking, nor does it have "combined arms" in any way.

> You do have it set up, though, that a unit will not retreat if the
> opponent has only one hp left, though, right?

Well of cour... er... in double checking I see I had it included but incorrectly! That's fixed now, but early numbers would have overestimated retreating somewhat.

> I guess I'm also confused by how you define "seige". My mental
> image of a seige is attacking until one side or the other is
> eliminated. How, then, can Gallics have a withdraw %age? Can
> you clarify?
Correct picture of the siege. I have a checkbox marked 'All Out' which if not checked, a unit that has been one hp left will head home to heal and withdraw from the siege. If all attacking units drop to 1hp, they break off. That's an option because in practice I would seldom if ever attack with a 1hp attacker, but it's good to give the program the option.

> Also, as a favor, could you run 6 knights (4/3) vs. 7 ansar
> warriors (4/2), with attacks and counter-attacks in a
> bloodbath? Or is that beyond your simulator? I'd like to see
> comparison results of knights attacking first vs. AWs attacking
> first. (No retreat since both are "fast" units.)

It won't have both attacks and counter-attacks, but I can give the answer letting each side take offense. (And yes, if speeds are same there's no retreat) I'll take both sides as vets and give the defender a fortify bonus since he's not counterattacking, but not give him a city or hill or anything other than grass. Siege results:
Knights on ansars - 70% win, 27% "withdraw", 3% lose
Expected number of units left after such a siege: 3.4 Knights, 0.8 Ansars
Ansars vs Knights - 60% win, 33% "withdraw", 7% loss
Expected number of units left: 3.0 Ansars, 1.1 Knights
("Withdraw" means attackers break off siege when all have
1hp left, although there were no retreats per se)
Conclusion - for these guys being on the attack is beneficial and you would counterattack rather than fortify, either way. Also, it's apparent that the Knights would win a "counterpunching" fight overall, but not by a great margin, probably whoever went first would still win.

> How many knights does it take to take out 3 riflemen -- 2 vet
> and one conscript? Probably assume a city size 7-12. Also,
> how long/much effort does it take to run your simulations (e.g.
> am I asking for too much?)

It's far longer to type the results than to get them, the run just takes a second or two. Ah, mixing the defenders, can't handle that at present, so let me give some other numbers -
Vet knights assaulting a size 7 grass city of three rifles
Three vet rifles: It takes 11 and you lose 4.5 in a blitz, or it takes 9 to have a 50-50 chance of winning a siege (losing 4.5).
Three reg rifles: Takes 9 to blitz (losing 3) or 7 to seige (losing 3)
Three conscripts: Takes 6.5 to blitz (losing 2) or just 4 to siege (losing 1.5, going all out)
(Takes 5.5 to siege two vet rifles alone, and 1.1 for solo conscript,
so interpolating gives in imprecise 7 knights to win the siege)

An assumption in the siege is - attackers go in order of descending current hp, whereas in practice, many folks milk elites by letting vets go first - that would be interesting to study.


Charis

 

[theos]

Originally posted by T-hawk
...and even what the optimal order to attack with your units is (do you send the Gallics in first hoping they do damage and retreat, or save them to clean up wounded defenders?)

I'm very tempted to write a program to do just that, but first I'll need to know how the computer chooses the order in which defenders defend (e.g. 2 hp rifleman or 3 hp musketeer?). I've tried to find answers in forum backposts but no luck, unsurprisingly. So does anyone reading this know, or should I just start my own thread in the General Discussions forum?

 

[T-hawk]

The game chooses the defender by Remaining HP * Defense Value (modified by fortification, etc). That of course gives the defending unit with the greatest chance of winning the combat. When there's a tie, the game uses the unit with the least damage.

Your example of 2-hp rifle or 3-hp musket is still a wash, of course. If there's still a tie (neither unit damaged), I _think_ it chooses the higher-defense-rating unit. I'm pretty sure I've seen conscript rifles defending before veteran cavalry do, which makes sense as for what the defender would want to happen.

I'm also pretty sure that vet pikemen defend before veteran knights; presumably the check causing that behavior is that a unit with a lower offense defends before a unit with a higher offense. This may or may not occur before the check in the previous paragraph.

 

[ToddMarshall]

*Yawn* I'm awake now . Offensively, I'd agree I did pretty good. A little RNG luck vs Carthage didn't hurt at all.

Bold move taking that city from Carthage? Nah. We had 5 Gallics -2 eliete 3 vet - on it and it's best defender was a regular. Everyone is going to have pikes soon anyhow. I didn't see a reason in the world NOT to take that city. Seening nothing better than a regular there was like waving a banner reading "Take me NOW please!" at me. Plus, at the time I was thinking we would want to go for the "take 3" against them before we would get a reasonable peace deal from them. Knowing what I know now (ie they are at war with Korea - which I couldn't see since we dont have an embasy with Korea), I wish we had taken one more city and tried to extort either monarchy or monotheisim or feudalisim for peace.

Things I messed up IMHO.

1) Not putting the FP down in Santiago right away. I should have just trusted my own judgement on that call but this is my first SG so I'm trying to look at the big picture of what the team thinks. BTW, this site ROCKS for the FP. Only our 2 east coast cities have any real shield loss now. They are at 40% or so loss and are closing in on their courthouses

2) My micro managment could have been a lot better really. I ended up overpaying 10 shields for the settler because I wanted it NOW not in 5 more turns, and there wasn't anywhere except Entremont, which I wanted to keep at size 10 for the rest of the GA, I could make it from faster than that without waste I was also a turn late on a temple whip when I miscounted shields (no, I wasn't tired or anything ) ALso I have a worker mining a grass that probably should have been Irrigated. He's got 9 turns to go (foreign worker) so somone might wana veto that stupidity

3) Not realizing Korea was at war with Carthage - We should have gone for the jugular there. BTW, KOREA IS WINNING. That Carthagenian city (Theveste) that controlled all the insence is a pile of ruins now. Unfortunately, we got a tech from Carthage, so we are stuck for 15 more turns. I STRONGLY suggest we keep a close eye on that conflict and if Korea is still at war with them in 15 turns, I think we should just help them finish Hanibal - not completely, but rather to try to get feudalisim or monotheisim or theology out of him.

4) I messed up one turn and didn't have a scientist, so we are a turn behind where we should be on our Engeneering research. Probably not critical, but still.... The scientist is currently in a size one city because its whiped and cant sustain 1 happy citizen at the moment, so he might as well be a scientist. Keep an eye on this, and when the whiping penalty lifts, move the scientist somewhere else.

Other notes.

To the next player- we have 2 regular warriors sleeping in one of the cities - can't remember which - but they arent needed there. Look around and find them and figure out what to do with them. I'd not upgrade them at this point, but they might be useful as a 2nd defender/flip supressor somewhere at the front. Originally I was going to upgrade them, but didn't have the cash and now I don't think it's worth it to upgrade them as they are regulars.

Our income looks bad at only like 6gpt, BUT we have 2 deals with Korea expiring in 1 turn so it will jump dramatically after that. The biggest problem is that we have to run 20% lux right now. Thats why I want those lux on line pronto. I'm not a big fan of colonies, but in this case it MIGHT ber justified if we can get that lux on line 20-30 turns faster that way because unhapiness is a serious problem for us right now. If we get 4 lux hooked up instead of 2, and add in the marketplace effect in the larger cities, and the Coleseum in Entremont thats almost finished (We may want to veto that to marketplace? Next players call on that), we have it made happiness wise, and our income will be pretty darn good too. Ordinarily I hate Colesums (Cathedrals are a much better return), but I think that one may be justified.

I thought about building the Lighthouse in Entremont, but decided against it since it could be near completion on the other continent - probably is actually. Surely SOME civ is working on it. While it would be nice to get it and make money from the contacts it could bring us, I felt we had more pressing needs right now.

We desperately NEED more workers. We should look at setting up a worker factory asap somewhere imho. We also need more spears soon, preferably before we have to build them as pikes.

The barb camp south of Alesia is gone. When I got the WM from the Ottomons, I saw where it was and had the Gallic take it out. Also, it won't be coming back any time soon. That carthage galley WAS a settler pair and they have a city to our south now. There are very few places left that arent in view of at least one civ so the barbs are running out of places to appear. Plus they are more likely to harrass Spain or Carthage if they do pop up.

If we get that road hooked up to Leptis, we should have a road all the way to Carthage. Please, please, please, give this road priority. I can't emphasize enough how key I feel this road is. The worker outside Leptis making the road through the forest there is a Carthage slave, so he will be slow =/. There are also a pair of spanish workers roading north to meet up with him.

I think we should go agressively at Carthages 4 western cities as soon as we can. This will give us more spices, more ivory, 3 cities that should be salvagable with courthouses, and if we can take and hold Carthage itself, the mother of all ancient wonders, the Pyramids.

On the subject of upgrading gallics to med. inf.... I think it's a bad idea for now. My suggestion would be leave them as Gallics until we get a target picked out, take the first or 2nd city there with Gallics, THEN rush a rax and consider upgrading some of them there. Eventually they will be better off as med inf i think, but lets leave them mobile till we get them all where we want them. I like Charis's idea of half and half actually.

Further thoughts.

"We're constrained now for 20 turns of peace with *everyone*"

No, we arent. We didn't get cities or techs from Arabia or the Ottomans, so if we HAVE to we can shread those and go get some, though that would probably give us a rep hit? My thinking on taking peace with them was it would be several turns before we had a healthy force of Gallics to spare to attack either of these opponents. Taking healing time, garrison needs, and the fact that half our Gallics were over in the west and would have to travel through forest/jungle to meet up with the eastern forces made me think it would be 15 or so turns before we could mount a credible offensive in either of those directions. We COULD have continued pumping Gallics instead of infra I suppose, and maybe been able to shave a few turns off that, but in my opinion, we needed markets and republic if we are going to play the buy tech game. Also, I THINK, could be wrong, that we are going to want pink or orange as an ally at some point, and which one is NOT clear to me, so why not keep them friendly for the time being? That was my thinking anyway. I don't play enough conquest only to be a master of it, so that could be weedy I suppose.

The capital would be much better placed in Alesia once we have taken those 2 cities in the south from Spain and Carthage, and given the opportunity, we should consider moving it there.

After we finish with Carthage, or maybe even while we are working on them, we should look at allying with either the Arabs vs the Ottomons or vice versa. I'd prefer the former. It looks possible that the Ottomans may not get horses. Looks like it will come to a cultural battle with the Arabs in one location to me unless I missed something. The Arabs DO have horse units (our warrior in the north watched one take out a barb horsie.)

Consider getting those last 2 embasies to give us allying options, and to improve Korean relations. The arabs and ottomons are now polite twards us .

Consider wonder strategy. Do we want to go for a wonder soon? I think we should try for either Sistine, Sun Tsu's, or Bach's but we will need a prebuild soon if we are going to go for one of those...... Plus we have to worry about the Hanging Gardens cascade snatching them away. The one wonder I now see as a MUST is Smiths. With the new ecconomic developments, this wonder is now THE wonder to grab it seems to me.

Now, will SOMONE PLEASE explain to me, in plain english, step by step, how I upload this file so you can all take a look at it? And also how I upload pictures. I tried to follow the directions here but I couldn't get it to work.

If not here, then aim me at WCManiacMarshall or MSN me at Pojounderdog@hotmail.com, or as a last resort, e-mail me at Rphgmc@aol.com.

 

[Carbon_Copy]

Here's a step-by-step on how to upload a file to Civfanatics:

-Go to the bottom of the page. The VERY bottom of the page. There's a row of links that appear on every CF page, the rightmost one being the file upload link. This is a part that threw me off for the longest time since I was expecting the upload link to be somewhere above where it actually was.

-When you click on the link it will spawn a small popup window that will prompt you to select up to three files for upload. Browse through your directories and find your file(s) that you wish to upload.

-Once you've found all the files you want to upload, hit the upload button.

-Your files are now uploaded, and are located in the folder http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/ (note the civfanatics.net instead of .com) Link to them like you normally would, using url and /url tags in square brackets, or by using the "http://" button above the entry window and following the prompts, or just by typing the url into your post and have the "automatically parse URLs" option checked below the entry window. Note that any spaces in the filename are converted to underscores. The page that the upload window shows you after you successfully upload the file should also give you the correct url for those files (IIRC, I didn't want to upload a dummy file to test), at least there should be some place that you can copy-paste it from after it's uploaded.

To show an image, enclose the url for the image in img and /img tags. If it's an image below 100k, you could also just attach it.

 

[ToddMarshall]

Should it actually do something when I click upload lol. I've done that and nothing appears to happen.

Ok, now it SAYS upload successful, but when I browse the folder.... they are NOT there.

 

[Carbon_Copy]

Interesting, I just tried uploading my monkeys-wearing-suits avatar pic and it didn't seem to have problems.

That said, I rooted around the folder and didn't seem to find any files that looked like your savegame (assuming that your file started with rbp1 or RBP1). You'll just have to try again, I suppose.

 

[ToddMarshall]

well, i got one that finally said it uploaded, but it didnt succeede. its 0k Ive tried 20 times now. I honestly don't know what else to do.